


maybe you're loveable

by catefrankie



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Prompt Fic, more a meta than a fic, way-oversimplified Logan characterization, with attempted parallels!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 07:12:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4867826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catefrankie/pseuds/catefrankie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Over the decades that follow, the years which for him span continents, the blood shed ruining lives which primarily, arguably, are their own, he slowly comes to realize who he is when she loves him."  </p><p>If we are shaped by our relationships, who is Logan Echolls?</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe you're loveable

He knows that for a time he thought Aaron loved him. He doesn’t remember what it felt like, though, being that kid – if that love, not long-lived and not nearly enough, made him feel safe, or special, or _something_. Even the memory of the fact is more reasoned than remembered; he must have believed in his father’s goodness because every child does. So the absence of Aaron’s love doesn’t change him, he thinks. It is merely the unquestioned background to his existence. It is Lynn who shapes him. Her love makes him gentle, makes him funny and graceful, and makes him know how to say sorry when he hurts someone, because her love is strong, but she has always been fragile.

Being loved by the Kanes, on the other hand, makes him into someone mythically strong, reckless and brave and romantic. He has Jake believing in him, Duncan at his side, Lilly holding his hand through it all, and Veronica, somehow holding them all together, pulling them out of their squabbles and selfishness, the one who understands unconditional love the best. They are a royal court, the four of them, and mostly he is Lilly’s knight but sometimes he dreams maybe he is king. People would follow him if he wanted - he knows that, and he relishes all the intense possibility of that unfulfilled “maybe”. But as long as he has Lilly, he doesn’t need to test the theory. She has power over him, and he knows, he _knows_ he has power over her – no other power games can compare, no other subjects matter – it is enough for any sovereign to rule over and with such a queen. 

And then, like a nightmare, he has no one. 

He knows he’s spiraling. Of course he knows. He wouldn’t call it a cry for help, because he knows from years of experience that help is just outside the door, staring into a glass of liquid courage which is ironically never enough to spur any kind of courageous action. And after a few weeks, he realizes he cannot count on the mythical strength of the perfect Kane family either. Jake and Celeste are at best sympathetic, they watch from afar as he slips further and further away from the boy who had been nervous to kiss their daughter in front of them. Duncan all but disappears – the best friend, confidant, and fellow ruler is lost behind dead eyes and a general, unshakable malaise. He knows it all traces back to Veronica, feels it in the angry vibrating in his bones every time she is near – her love was supposed to be unconditional, agapic. But she’d snitched on him to Lilly, and Lilly had lost her life over it. Even memories of Lilly herself, which should be sacred, his shining light, are tangled up in guilt and anger and a sneaking suspicion that she had so much power over him in the first place because she didn’t care as much as he did. So it’s not a cry for help. It’s more a cry into the void. 

He isn’t sure who he is, when he is alone. He thinks perhaps he is savage, cruel. Some part of him is pleased at this. 

Then out of the blue, swimming in the middle of a dozen other taunts and jibes as if it doesn’t matter, there is a pronouncement. “I don’t want his apology.” An uncaringness which still somehow stops the pain: her apathy spares him a beating. Which is so different from the sad reality of his mother’s love.

He sees things differently then, notices things which perhaps had always been there but which seem more significant, somehow. There are snide remarks, interrogations and accusations. She is aware of him, exquisitely so, she is on his case and in his face and in his head. She calls him on all of his shit, and some shit which isn’t even his, as if he is responsible for not only himself, but the world. It feels different than the lingering, disappointed interest left over from Jake’s admiration.

And then, albeit tangentially, she comes to his rescue. She is there to bail out her sleaze of a boyfriend, he knows that, but she brings him home. She doesn’t leave him. It’s a low bar. But it is still markedly different from Duncan’s friendship, Duncan’s loyalty.

Tragedy strikes, once again, but he goes to her, and for a little while that means tragedy can’t touch him, he soars above it. She is persistence and professionalism, taking him at his word, and he is hope and exhilaration and desperate, desperate despair. She is a pair of strong arms holding him up, holding him together, she is small fingers stroking his hair. He is ashamed even to think it, but it is a moment of absolute weakness: it feels like her empathy is the only thing keeping him alive, and it is so different from the power Lilly had over him.

For a moment, he allows himself to wonder who he would be if she loved him. He can’t tell.

Then, “I loved Lilly,” she is telling him, “maybe if I didn’t I could let this go.”

And he knows it’s time for him to let her go, for him to break off this relationship where she is tied to him, where she has to help him, has to even talk to him, so he hands her a check. She rips it up. Whatever it means, it feels something like unconditional. Maybe she loves him too much to let go, as well. 

They are friends again, and he still doesn’t know what that makes him.

Then, she is a scared voice on a cellphone, and a destination at the end of a very frantic very fast drive. Battery of a federal agent aside, at least, at _least_ she is safe.

Then she is kissing him.

Over the decades that follow, the years which for him span continents, the blood shed ruining lives which primarily, arguably, are their own, he slowly comes to realize who he is when she loves him. He is someone who has only one mission in his life, only one thing that matters: saving her, and anyone else that she’s not around to save. He thinks, perhaps, of all the versions of himself born from others’ loves, this is the best. Through the years of silence and uncertainty, he tells himself some part of her must still love him, like it’s a benediction, a magic spell which permits him to access this side of himself. _She still loves me. I can be a hero._ He stops believing that she loves him, eventually even stops telling himself. But somewhere along the way, he starts to believe that he can be a hero.

Along the way, he saves himself.

And then, like a miracle, she’s taking his calls, she’s rescuing him again, except this time she doesn’t accuse him of anything at all. They are friends again (which must be the fifth time they’ve gone through this transition at least), they are a team, they are inseparable, they are the same as always. She’s in his dreams at night, and she smiles at him with something like peace in her eyes, which he hasn’t seen lately in real life, but can imagine clear as day. He wakes knowing it will all end soon, one way or another, but hope is sharp and painful in his chest, making him stand taller, and fidget more than he has in years. 

Then, “Don’t go.”

It turns out that she does love him.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for prompt 5d in the vmficrec September prompt challenge thingy. Inspired by the quote: “Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are," from Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
> 
> Title from the song "Wake me up", because in my head Logan is best represented by Ed Sheeran (or maybe Hozier), and Veronica is definitely Laura Marling.
> 
> This is my first fic for Veronica Mars, and probably technically at all. I appreciate any feedback! However, I must say that I have no idea how this website works.


End file.
